I have been seeing a trend of a new genre of games coming out of late. These games are focusing on the visuals and music; therefore creating more then just a game, but art as well. The UnderGarden is one of these games. The premise of the game is you are this “Stitch” (from Lilo and Stitch) looking character and your job is to run around and pollinated the plants and make them grow. In terms of the games goal, its pretty straight forward; go through each level and pollinate all the plants, and find all you friends, gems, and special flowers.
In order to find every thing you have to explore, but of course there are things blocking your way. You can use various types of fruits to lift blocks, drop blocks, and light up your way. You will need to watch out for blue orbs that take away your pollen so that allow you to make the flora grow as well as the ameba like blue blobs that will shot you back the way you came. If you overcome problems and solve the puzzles you are rewarded. With each completed level you receive new looks you can apply to your character such as color, horns and hats; I liked the top hat and mustache the best. To unlock every thing though you have to find all your friend, special flower, gems, and pollinate the needed amount of flora in each level.
I have to agree with Jarret, this game is art. The UnderGarden is a very visually impressive and the interactive music adds another layer to the game. What do I mean by interactive? During each level you can find your other band members that are playing various instruments. As you pick them up the music incorporates their instruments into the mix, and if you drop them you they are dropped from the music. The visuals and music combined creates the Zen feeling that the creators where looking for.
I found this game very calming for the most part. I had repeated problems with the game freezing on me though. I couldn’t pin point the cause of this other then there maybe just too much going on at once. However, due to the fact this game uses checkpoints and not saves, a freeze would result in having to restart a whole level. For this reason I would recommend getting this for the console.
Overall this game is very enjoyable. Its best to play on a console system though due to the repeated freezing seen on the PC. I also think the controls would be easier using a joystick over a mouse. When the game was working well I found myself getting lost in the music and art. I have to agree with IGN this game is “trance-inducing.” If you want a game that will make you tune every thing out and relax this is the game.
